1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to stacking trusses and in particular to a V-shaped former for forming a demountable stackable truss
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CRF 1.97 and 1.98
In copending patent application Ser. No. 08/902,404, filed Jul. 29, 1997, and entitled "TRUSS", commonly owned by the assignee herein, and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, there is disclosed a V-shaped stackable truss for use in construction of staging and the like.
In the prior art, such staging trusses were not stackable nor could they be disassembled and consequently they took up a great deal of space during shipment from location-to-location where they had to be assembled into a staging complex. Thus the commonly assigned copending patent application disclosed a V-shaped truss that could be stacked and therefore could be shipped with much less space.
Also, in a second commonly assigned copending application Ser. No. 09/169,488, filed of even date herewith, and entitled "Method and Apparatus for Assembling a Lightweight Stackable Truss", and also incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, there is disclosed a V-shaped stackable truss that could be disassembled and shipped in the disassembled stage and then reassembled to form a stackable truss at the location where the staging was to be constructed. This enabled the shipping of the units in a very tight, compact manner, thus allowing truss elements to be shipped at a much more economical rate. In that application, there was disclosed a V-shaped former that could be removably connected to an elongated chord or support member, such as a hollow tube, at its apex and at the outer end of each of its two depending legs. By removably attaching a plurality of spaced V-shaped formers to three chords or support members, a stackable V-shaped truss was obtained that could be disassembled and the parts shipped in their disassembled state.
The present invention relates to the V-shaped formers themselves and their novel construction.